by Becky Melby
And then he danced with Emily and wrecked everything.
Jake would marry Emily and they’d move into her house—a house with lots of rooms to fill with kids. But the kids would be Jake and Emily’s.
In her daydreams, Jake built a big house and she got to design her own room. They’d go on trips every summer. Boating and hiking and skiing all over the country, maybe even the world.
She’d never told anyone about her prayer. People would laugh. What were the chances a single guy Jake’s age would want to raise two kids who were almost teenagers? But God could do miracles. Even though he hadn’t healed Mom, Lexi still believed God answered prayers. Pansy was alive. That was a miracle.
But sometimes He said no. And it looked like this was one of those times.
When was the last time he raised his hands in worship? Jake couldn’t remember. But they seemed to lift of their own accord this morning as he sang “The Heart of Worship.”
Lord, it’s all about You.
The song ended. The worship leader prayed. Jake felt his shoulders relax as he sat down. He rested his hands on his knees, still open in surrender. The peace that swelled in him was almost foreign, and with it came a sense of expectation, a tingly feeling he’d experienced daily as an on-fire-for-Jesus fourteen-year-old. Before his father died and he turned Goth and then jock and then simply distracted with life. He’d once labeled the tingles Holy Spirit vibes. In that one close-to-God year, he’d felt the vibes every morning when he opened his eyes and yelled, “Good morning, Lord! Who are we going to save today?”
He must have said those very words the morning of the day he’d met Emily.
Only the dimmest memory remained of sitting in lawn chairs by a roaring fire, talking to two girls about how much Jesus loved them and what He’d done for them. Jake had been big on zeal back then but short on true caring. He’d kept a list of the people he’d prayed “the prayer” with but never followed up on a single one. Never wrote or called or cared how they were doing a week or even a day later.
What about nineteen years later?
“Many of you remember the story of Abby Sunderland, the sixteen-year-old girl who tried to sail solo around the world.” Pastor Karl began his sermon before reaching the podium. “There are many lessons to be learned from her story, but the one I want to focus on today is how she unexpectedly needed someone to rescue her.”
Okay, Lord, You have my attention. The name, the water, the rescue. Who was it who’d just said last night, “I don’t believe in coincidence”?
Pastor Karl folded his arms across his chest. “When Abby set sail on January 23 in 2010, she had every expectation that she was going to successfully sail around the world. However, she unexpectedly drifted into a massive storm. …”
Unexpectedly drifted. That could explain an entire decade of his life.
“… the sailboat began to take on water. She was experiencing winds—”
Adam’s elbow made contact with Jake’s ribs. “That’s just like us!” he whispered.
Jake nodded. “Listen,” he whispered back as the pastor told about the French fishing vessel that rescued the girl forty hours after a plane spotted her debilitated boat.
“This morning Jesus is going to tell us a parable about a different kind of search-and-rescue mission, and the hope underlying this story is far greater than the world’s most qualified search-and-rescue crews. The hope Jesus fixes our eyes on this morning is the hope of His Father in heaven, who lovingly rescues everyone who belongs to Him. Listen to the parable Jesus teaches His disciples in Matthew 18.”
Jake opened his Bible and found the passage.
“‘What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one?’”
The one. As if highlighted in neon orange, the words blazed.
“‘If he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.’ God pursues us relentlessly. We need to join Him in relentlessly pursuing the lost.”
The tingles increased like energy droplets trickling into his veins.
Had he missed the cues? Maybe Emily was the one he was supposed to pursue but not in the way he’d thought or hoped. Was it too late for a follow-up call on a girl he’d witnessed to nineteen years ago?
None of the zeal he’d possessed at fourteen had survived his years of Christless living. Maybe that wasn’t all bad. The fanaticism was gone, but his faith had returned one night in a sterile white-walled room. No angel choirs or bright lights, just a quiet certainty that God was present in the midst of Abby’s pain.
What he’d lost sight of was that God was also present in the midst of Ben’s vileness.
“We need crayons.” Adam dunked a French fry into Lexi’s chocolate shake and offered it to her.
It wasn’t the grossest thing he’d ever done, but it came close. Lexi dipped half a chicken strip into barbeque sauce and plunged it into his cup.
“Yum. Thanks.” Without even blinking, Adam pulled it out, dripping with strawberry shake, and popped it into his mouth. “Like I was saying,” he garbled, “we need to take crayons and paper.”
“You want to color pretty pictures at the cemetery?” Her voice was angrier than she wanted it to be.
Adam did the slow head-shake thing that said he was way smarter than her.
“For rubbings, right?” Jake asked. Her uncle never intentionally made her feel dumb. Sometimes it just happened.
Adam swirled the barbeque sauce with his straw. “Right.” The top of his shake turned brownish pink. He slurped it off.
“I’m not going.” She didn’t need a reason for not wanting to walk over places where people were buried.
“Why?” Her brother and her uncle asked at the same time.
“It’s creepy.”
Adam pointed an onion ring at her. “It’s history. I looked it up. There are tombstones there from the 1840s. I love finding kids who died when they were like our age and trying to guess what killed them.”
“Ewww.” This time Jake said the same thing she did. She grabbed the onion pointed at her and took a massive bite. “That’s disgusting.”
“No it isn’t. It makes you glad to be living in the twenty-first century. Imagine not having all the medical breakthroughs we have now. A hundred and fifty years ago if you’d had an asthma attack you wouldn’t have—”
“Adam. Eat.” Jake sounded tough but he was smiling. Men.
“You guys are both disgusting.”
Adam pointed to her shake. “Theobromine in chocolate can help relax your bronchial tubes, so you’d have been okay if you lived near a cacao—”
“Adam. Eat.” Jake laid his hand on her arm. “I understand your not wanting to go.”
It took her a second to figure it out. Jake thought she wouldn’t want to go because it would make her think of Mom. Good. She’d play that up. “Thank you. It would be difficult.”
“I know. You don’t—”
“Wait.” Adam shook his head. “That’s not why, is it? You don’t want to go ‘cause Em—” Adam made a face like he’d just bit into a lemon.
Jake’s eyebrows scrunched together. “What is it with you and Emily?”
Lexi wadded her catsup-smeared napkin and threw it at Adam’s face. He was supposed to be the person she could trust with secrets. “Nothing.”
“Emily said you had fun yesterday.”
Lexi shrugged. She’d had fun. But that was yesterday. Before Emily changed her mind about wanting a prince.
Her uncle studied her like she was some newly discovered bug species. And then he pulled his hand away and picked up two French fries. As he swished them in catsup, he said, “Emily’s moving to California as soon as her house sells. Did you know that?”
She’d heard it, but she didn’t know it. Hearing hi
m say it made it seem like it would really happen. Jake wasn’t planning on keeping Emily here. So maybe he’d still build the dream house. In that case, she could stand a couple of hours of walking on dead people. She wiped her hands on her napkin. “I have crayons.”
October 13, 1852
The shop was empty. The coals glowed white as he pumped the bellows then blazed red when he stopped. Liam worked alone today but didn’t know why. Just before ten this morning, Big Jim had jiggled his cot with an urgency that jolted him upright. “Sorry to wake you, boy. I need to talk with someone about getting a delivery from Spring Prairie.”
Liam held his questions. Too many spaces between the wall boards. Too many ears. “I’ll go.”
“Not this time. Going to take some money changing hands to get this one on its way. Are you free tonight?”
“Always.”
The man smiled wryly and nodded. “If there is a God, may He shine on you for it.”
“What’ll you have me do while you’re away?” He wasn’t skilled enough to handle a big job on his own.
“Make nails. Tell the busybodies I’m delivering a harrow to Spring Prairie should they ask, and they will. Act like you slept last night.”
Now, four hours later, the sun was high and sweat ran from his brow. His pile of square nails had grown to two inches and he’d made two hooks the length of his hand for Hannah, adding a fancy twist in one that would impress Jim.
His thoughts danced on the tune played by his hammer as he tickled the anvil with extra strikes between blows to a nail rod. Another year under his belt and he’d be making fine music. Like Jim said often, “I’d dread this job like sin if I couldn’t put a song to it.”
The beat took on a life of its own and soon became a hymn. “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee …” In the heat and the smoke and the grime, he led a one-man choir. “Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy law’s commands; could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; Thou must—”
“Where’s Jim?”
Two words, and the worship died on his lips. Da stood in the doorway, making a scrawny shadow on the dirt floor. Liam’s hammer missed the rod and hit his thumb. He bit back the sting.
Da laughed. “Amadán.”
Had there been a day in his life when he hadn’t been called a fool? Had his father stood over his cradle and labeled him amadán the day he was born? God, be my strength, restrain my hands. “Are you needing something?”
Again the laugh, hissing as though birthed in the bowels of the forge. “I’m needing a real smith to fix a harness and a real son to plow the corn under. Can’t have neither it appears.”
“Let me look at it.” Liam held out a black-streaked hand.
Da stroked his rusty beard. Icy eyes stared him down. Finally he shrugged and held out a bent bar and broken harness. “Better you than that negro-loving thief. If—”
“Can I help you, Mr. Keegan?”
A crimson blush rose from the sweat-stained collar of Da’s coat to the brim of his tattered hat. The red clashed with the orange of his beard. Liam forgot all about the pain in his thumb as he nodded his thanks for Jim’s timely appearance. He held up the bar and traces in his hand. “He’s gone and snapped a harness and bent a whippletree. Askin’ more of his horses than they’re made to deliver again.”
Da glared. Liam drew strength from Jim’s presence.
Jim nodded in his usual patient way. “We can fix that.” He turned his back on Da and walked to a far corner where a tangle of harness leather hung from hooks. “Liam? Can I get your opinion on this?”
The question was for show, a subtle knife jab at the man who thought his son less than worthless, but Liam responded with all the seriousness of a seasoned smith with an opinion to share. “Of course.” He strode with wide, firm steps to the corner.
Jim held the stub of a pencil in one meaty hand, a dirty scrap of paper in the other. Pack tools 4 tonight, he wrote then drew a thick black circle and casually pointed to his neck.
Liam’s stomach rose in his throat. He’d heard of such things, never seen it. His hands shook with fear and rage. God, why do You allow this? Without an ounce of confidence, he nodded.
The paper crumbled in the massive hand. Jim cleared his throat. “Go work on packing the order in the back room,” he commanded too loud, for Da’s benefit. Another code, this one for sleep that wasn’t likely to come.
With or without sleep, he’d be up at midnight.
CHAPTER 19
Hush you two. It’s Sunday.”
Emily lounged on her inflatable bed-turned-chair on the back porch and listened to Cardinal Bob and his significant other battle it out. Karen was nagging again. Why was she always several boughs higher on the tree than her man? Emily lifted her coffee mug. “You guys need counseling.”
Her flippant remark left a bitter taste that French vanilla coffee couldn’t wash away. She’d broached the subject of counseling the day before she left for Colorado. The day Keith offered to pay for her “problem.”
In retrospect, she couldn’t fathom why she’d tried.
Stupid. The definition of insanity is pursuing a guy who’s losing interest. Doing it the way she had was nothing short of evil.
Cardinal Bob took flight. The empty pine branch bobbed. He landed on the porch rail. Bright red against a green backdrop. Black eyes in a black face gave him a stern expression, but the Cosmo Kramer ‘do made it impossible to take Cardinal Bob too seriously. Maybe that was Karen’s whole problem.
Bob’s head swiveled. One eye stared directly at her. Emily had the eerie sense he was trying to tell her something. She didn’t move, just stared in awe at the amazing creature so close she could count his feathers. Lord, he’s so beautiful. She breathed the prayer as easily as the morning air.
Karen called from the tree—dweeb, dweeb, dweeb. Unruffled, Bob nodded, as if to say, “Watch this.” His wings opened and he glided back to his branch. Purdy, purdy, purdy, he answered.
Emily laughed. “Killing her with kindness, huh? How’s that working for ya?”
A rhythmic screech, like steady bleats on a wooden whistle, interrupted. A blue jay swept from behind the shed and landed on the wounded oak. Karen stopped complaining. Bob began a loud chip, chip, chip—a warning cry—as he fluttered to a branch a foot away from her. Karen was anything but lovable today, but there he was, defending her.
The way a man should.
Leave it in the past. What’s done is done. She pulled everything she could think of from Vanessa’s bag of tricks and said them out loud. Keith wasn’t worth the time she’d spent on him back then, so why was she giving him a piece of her day now?
Because it was all his fault. Everything that happened wouldn’t have happened if Keith Miller had just come out and told her he wasn’t a one-woman kind of man.
Emily reached down and grabbed the top book from a stack of things she wanted to skim before Jake showed up. An English Settler in Pioneer Wisconsin—The Letters of Edwin Bottomley 1842–1850. She opened the cover and stared at an Alfred Hitchcock–like silhouette of a portly gentleman in a waistcoat with tails. The caption identified him as Captain Thomas Bottomley, the recipient of the letters bound in the book. Was the cane in his hand functional or fashionable? How convenient to live in a time when no one would know.
She flipped past the introduction. The first entry was headed LIVERPOLL, May 11, 1842 … the Shipe is very Clean and the Captain appears a Sober and intelligent man.
Misspellings were frequent, and the lack of punctuation made it hard to separate sentences as she read about the Bottomley family’s departure from England.
Emily leaned back and sipped her coffee. The cardinals clamored on. The blue jay made sporadic swoops in front of the pine tree as she read. Sunday May 15 5 0 Clock This morning we are being towed out into the Irish Chanel by a Steamer.
Lost in the past, she left her own past behind.
Emily arra
nged eighteen letters in two rows on the now clean card table. Jake laid out the three letters Emily had found in the pipe above the others. Only those had dates, all from November 1852. And now they knew who’d written them.
Hannah Shaw.
Emily pointed to one penned by the man, or boy, and read the short note out loud. “‘The stationmaster asked me to retrieve the parcel I picked up last night and bring it back to you. He has no room for it at present. Can you take it tomorrow night? I am confident you will, and that means I will see you again. God does, indeed, smile upon us.’” Something about the last few words roughened her voice. “It’s all so coded.”